I have an Axpert 5kw, bought from the forum, that has been working great for the last year.

For now, I have no solar panels connected only mains and 1 bank of 48v 180ah batteries

Today I had to do some  maintenance on the pool electric box (remove a Sonoff switch that failed) and accidentally switched off the axpert 220v feed trip switch,  immediate there was a beep (no other noise or burn) and the axpert then went into  a mode where it seems to switch off and tries to come on, brief flicker of display light and all three leds then cycles continue every 1 second seemingly to try and start up and fail.

There is no blown fuse, and the batteries are all balanced and charged (each being 13.3v)

When i disconnect the mains, and the battery it stops but as soon as I reconnect battery and switch on (with mains connected or not) it cycles again with loud relay clicking on and off.

I did open the unit to see if i could see anything fundamentally wrong /blown  but cannot see any issues.

Has anyone experienced this before  or is there any recommended repair shops that look at these in Centurion/Pretoria area  

 

 

Is the display on? If so is there a fault??

No display, just the 3 leds flic's on and off, every second 😞  

2 hours ago, Ryeman said:

Today I had to do some  maintenance on the pool electric box (remove a Sonoff switch that failed) and accidentally switched off the axpert 220v feed trip switch,  immediate there was a beep (no other noise or burn) and the axpert then went into  a mode where it seems to switch off and tries to come on, brief flicker of display light and all three leds then cycles continue every 1 second seemingly to try and start up and fail.

When you switched off the 220V trip switch, I assume this is the ac in to the inverter. If the battery voltage is too low and there is no mains supply, I think what you experience can happen the inverter will try and switch on but voltage might be too low and it will just switch off again. 

Mine died over the weekend as well, using the microwave the lights in the house flickered on and off before the house was plunged into darkness. 

Don't want to play too much with the box but everything is dead, no lights or anything, it has also been a year since install. 

11 hours ago, Ryeman said:

When i disconnect the mains, and the battery it stops but as soon as I reconnect battery and switch on (with mains connected or not) it cycles again with loud relay clicking on and off.

Can you measure the voltage at the inverter's battery terminals when it's doing that? Preferably on a meter with a "bar graph" so you can see fast changes. Or one that can record the minimum voltage.

11 hours ago, Ryeman said:

There is no blown fuse, and the batteries are all balanced and charged (each being 13.3v)

13.3 V seems an odd voltage; too high for a rested voltage, and too low for when it's being charged. What voltage do the battery modules end up at after a few hours resting?

Disconnecting AC-in or AC-out while the inverter was running should not have caused any problem.

11 hours ago, Blowdart18 said:

Mine died over the weekend as well, using the microwave the lights in the house flickered on and off before the house was plunged into darkness. 

Don't want to play too much with the box but everything is dead, no lights or anything, it has also been a year since install. 

Is there a warranty on the gear? Who did the installation?

3 hours ago, Coulomb said:

Can you measure the voltage at the inverter's battery terminals when it's doing that? Preferably on a meter with a "bar graph" so you can see fast changes. Or one that can record the minimum voltage.

 

12 hours ago, Gerrie said:

When you switched off the 220V trip switch, I assume this is the ac in to the inverter. If the battery voltage is too low and there is no mains supply, I think what you experience can happen the inverter will try and switch on but voltage might be too low and it will just switch off again. 

 

4 hours ago, Coulomb said:

13.3 V seems an odd voltage; too high for a rested voltage, and too low for when it's being charged. What voltage do the battery modules end up at after a few hours resting?

Disconnecting AC-in or AC-out while the inverter was running should not have caused any problem.

 

Sorry do not have Equipment for "Bar Graph", but I measure the voltage while the Axpert Cycles and it is sitting constantly on 51V, also measured the individual batteries and they are all sitting at aprox 12.8v after standing disconnected from the inverter for 12+ hours.  (No warranty unfortunate)

Think I will have to take in the unit for Repair quote, any recommendation on a repair centre I can use in Centurion/Pretoria after lockdown. 

Hope there is no load shedding in mean time 🙂 

3 hours ago, Ryeman said:

Think I will have to take in the unit for Repair quote

Yes, it's not looking good for the inverter now.

@Coulomb Actually, I've had this strange behavior with my Axpert VMII as well now.

At first I couldn't understand why it would start for a sec or two and then turn off (this is after I try starting the inverter back up after error 08) and then randomly found out that it only starts (at least for me) when I give it PV (shift PV string from on-grid inverter to vmII) and when it is properly up and running (takes a few seconds). I can shift the PV string back to my on-grid inverter. 

For some odd reason, it doesn't start with grid or battery.

Edited May 5, 20206 yr by StrikerX

21 hours ago, StrikerX said:

@Coulomb Actually, I've had this strange behavior with my Axpert VMII as well now.
...

For some odd reason, it doesn't start with grid or battery.

It seems that the VM IIs have 3 power supplies: battery, main (from the DC bus), and AC. It sounds like you've lost two of yours somehow.

The battery and AC power supplies (both of which don't seem to be working for you) have SMD fuses and NTCs at their very input. It might be that you have blown those fuses somehow.

Look for a PM.

Thanks, I do not have PV array connected thus could not try that, I ended up taking the unit in for repairs on Saturday  to Nungu Solar and got back the repaired unit today.  They will still send me the report on what was faulty  but the receptionist indicated they had to replace a card in the unit.

Will install and monitor, thanks for all the suggestions and feedback.

On 2020/05/04 at 7:22 AM, Richard Mackay said:

Is there a warranty on the gear? Who did the installation?

Well funny enough the guy finally managed to come have a look today, it was not the inverter but rather one of the fuses from the batteries that popped. 

When it popped it obviously switched off the inverter. 

But apparently research said that some of the suppliers offer 2 year warranty on the Axpert King. 

On 2020/05/11 at 4:20 PM, Ryeman said:

Thanks, I do not have PV array connected thus could not try that, I ended up taking the unit in for repairs on Saturday  to Nungu Solar and got back the repaired unit today.  They will still send me the report on what was faulty  but the receptionist indicated they had to replace a card in the unit.

Will install and monitor, thanks for all the suggestions and feedback.

Did they advise what was wrong?

Our inverter is doing the same, relay clicking and screen flashing.

Its just out of warranty, we sent it to the place we bought it from for assessment. It arrived there and worked fine, today they tried switching it on and it wouldnt power on, relay clicking and screen flashing.

They think it might be the control board or the motherboard so they are testing that now.
Problem is the control board is R980 and the motherboard is +- R5000.

On 2021/03/17 at 8:04 PM, Bl4d3 said:

the motherboard is +- R5000

Yes, the main board is way more than half the electronics, and thus the cost, of the whole unit. A bit like a PC motherboard.

Edited March 19, 20215 yr by Coulomb

Wouldn't that be covered by the building insurance?

We had the inverter repaired and has been working fine for about 1 month.

So today we received a new battery for our system.
Following what is recommended, we charged up our 2 x LiFePO4 batteries to 100%, then connected the new battery only to the inverter to charge up to 100% so that we can then connect the 3 batteries to each other and let them sit for an hour so they can balance between themselves.

When powering on the inverter, it started with its relay clicking and screen flashing again every 1 second.

The new battery was at 34% SOC at about 48v (if memory serves right).

Would this be an error caused because the battery voltage is too low?

Fortunately we do have a new inverter as well which we are using to charge up the new battery

And then just like that, the inverter is working again.

Super weird

8 hours ago, 87 Dream said:

Electrickery proudly sponsored by Voltronics 😂😂 must a relief it's still working though. Reminds me of my LR Defender. Hopefully she gives you some good endurance & mileage before she gives up the ghost 🤣

87

The idea is to not turn it off again 🤣

22 hours ago, Bl4d3 said:

When powering on the inverter, it started with its relay clicking and screen flashing again every 1 second.

The new battery was at 34% SOC at about 48v (if memory serves right).

Would this be an error caused because the battery voltage is too low?

I suspect it was a combination of the battery SOC being fairly low, and one Pylontech battery not being enough to initially power up a 5 kW inverter when the SOC is low (and hence the internal battery resistance is low).

It might also be something to do with charging the capacitors in the inverter. After the first time, the capacitors would retain some charge, which would make the next pre-charge easier. Perhaps the other inverter had weaker capacitors. But with all three battery modules in parallel, the inrush current is reduced. Hence, "... just like that, the inverter is working again."

The discharged capacitors are essentially a dead short to the battery. So the battery probably detected the excessive inrush current and turned itself off to protect itself from the over-discharge. Tried again a second later, same deal. Eventually, or via the other inverter, enough charge ended up in the capacitors that they weren't such a dead short for so long, and the battery was able to connect and stay connected.

Edit: in other words, there was nothing wrong with the inverter, it was the battery disconnecting from the inverter due to the inrush current.

Edited May 13, 20215 yr by Coulomb

I experience the same clicking. Battery pack Lead Acid, 460ah at 50.2 volts. Have disconnected the solar array, this makes no difference. Could there be a problem with a power supply that powers the relay?

Ok, plea for help. Am entirely off grid, and had to rush out to get another smaller hybrid system to tide us over. But now need to fix the Axpert 5k. Has anyone got a cct diagram? Or knows where to get? I opened the box and not even sure which relay it is that does the clicking. I suspect that the unit wants to kick in, relay operates, but there is not enough holding current for the relay, so it keeps on dropping out. Running off large Lead Acid and didn't allow them to discharged, it's definitively not the batteries or batter connections. The 3kw replacement unit operates fine.

 

6 hours ago, AlexCape said:

Has anyone got a cct diagram? Or knows where to get?

There are some partial schematic traces here: Partial schematic traces.

There are also some simplified schematics in the various service manuals; check the files section of this forum.

Edit: it's probably not the relay driver, it's more likely the whole power supply collapsing, either due to a fault in the power supply, or something is drawing too much current once the firmware progresses to a certain stage.

Edited September 23, 20214 yr by Coulomb

3 hours ago, Coulomb said:

Edit: it's probably not the relay driver, it's more likely the whole power supply collapsing, either due to a fault in the power supply, or something is drawing too much current once the firmware progresses to a certain stage.

Hi Coulomb, thanks. yes that makes sense. I started groping in the dark, I have limited electronic knowledge but came across an SMT diode, D51, that reads the same both directions in CCT, 20.4 ohm and 0.018 V on diode tester. That probably does not seem right. The other components around it give plausible readings.

Will follow your links.

BTW I  also like 2 panels per string, to keep DC voltage below regulation.  I found I get really good results using a 72 -cell in series with a 60-cell. Two 60-cells would be too low.

Edited September 23, 20214 yr by AlexCape
edit: sadly, looked at your diagram, it looks like I am just measuring R216 and R217 in series...

On 2021/09/23 at 6:29 PM, AlexCape said:

Hi Coulomb, thanks. yes that makes sense. I started groping in the dark, I have limited electronic knowledge but came across an SMT diode, D51, that reads the same both directions in CCT, 20.4 ohm and 0.018 V on diode tester. That probably does not seem right. The other components around it give plausible readings.

Will follow your links.

BTW I  also like 2 panels per string, to keep DC voltage below regulation.  I found I get really good results using a 72 -cell in series with a 60-cell. Two 60-cells would be too low.

Hi AlexCape

Did you get your unit fixed? Sit with same problem of switching on and off every sec.

Can you advice me?

Thanks